We’ve Moved!

Monthly Archives: February 2016

Within four years’
time, Kitsap County’s 911 dispatch center and its morgue went from
being among the most antiquated in the state to the most
sophisticated. Kitsap County Central Communications
moved from a
toll house on Warren Avenue into an $11 million,
state-of-the-art facility in West Hills in 2005. Four years later,
the coroner’s office, once housed in a dilapidated house next to
the jail, also
moved to West Hills in a $3.6 million campus still considered
among the most advanced in the state.

On Saturday, nearly 200 people came to the Kitsap Sun’s
latest Story Walk at the two facilities, getting an inside look
into the life of a coroner and a dispatcher.

Within the dispatch center, Brandy D’Intinosanto, its dayshift
supervisor who has been with the agency more than 12 years, led
tours right to the floor of dispatch, the high-tech, bulletproof
hive of the county’s emergency response system. It continues to be
on the cutting edge, as Kitsap
was the first to allow residents to text 911, she said.

Our 911 dispatchers create 200,000 cases, or “details,” every
year. They handle even more calls than that. D’Intinosanto
mentioned that even if most, if not all of their generator-backed
technology were to fail, they are still trained in a handwritten
card system that would keep our emergency responders moving.

I’d like to think such a lapse in the investigative process
would not occur today. The coroner’s office investigates about 350
of the total 2,000 deaths that occur in Kitsap each year. They
focus on traumatic and suspicious deaths, conducting autopsies to
help determine the cause of death. They also pin down the manner of
death, which can be one of four things: homicide, suicide, accident
or natural.

Police have the job of investigating the scene of the crime; the
coroner’s office has custody of the body. Bremerton Police
Chief Steve Strachan came along Saturday and talked of the “honor”
involved in death cases — that it is never something his officers
take lightly.

Sandstrom, who has been Kitsap’s elected coroner since 1998, is
a former Washington State trooper and chaplain who talked Saturday
of one of the office’s most paramount duties: death notifications.
He and his deputies have the task of delivering the news of death
to next of kin. They once did so in vehicles marked “coroner’s
office,” but that changed on Sandstrom’s watch, Chief Deputy
Coroner Tony Stewart told the crowd. The reason? It made a private
family matter something very public when they’d arrive in someone’s
driveway.

The coroner’s office contracts with a forensic pathologist to
conduct autopsies. The biggest counties in Washington have medical
examiners, or actual doctors hired by the county. Kitsap could
convert to that system, as counties over 250,000 residents can, but
there’s been no push to do so. Strachan pointed out Saturday that
the medical examiner system is costly.

Thanks, everyone, who came out on Saturday. As usual, we all
learned a lot. Be sure to email me at josh.farley@kitsapsun.com
with any questions or concerns.

Also, be sure to subscribe to Bremerton Beat updates on this
page and I’ll be sure to post an update when I know where the
March Story
Walk is going to be.

It’s a common sight these days to find home
remodels in progress all over Bremerton.

But what about the overhaul of an entire cul-de-sac?

That’s what you’ll find at the eastern edge of F Street in Navy
Yard City, where a development duo has snatched up six lots
once overgrown with weeds, covered in litter and frequented by
squatters.

Veteran builders Noel Larsen and John Stallings started their
own company in 2013. Proserpina
Construction — whose name shares that of a Roman goddess
sometimes known for rebirth or renewal — aims to construct or
remodel not only individual homes, but blocks of them when such
possibilities arise.

Before the remodel: Yes, there
is a house in this photo, somewhere. Image by Google
Maps.

The pair say they’re helping to “control the destiny” of the
street’s end, as Larsen puts it, and breathe new life into it.

“It’s recreating this end of F Street,” Stallings said. “Taking
it from a low point to a high point.”

That work began with a dilapidated yet robust 1937-built
white house (pictured above) that was so overrun with brambles
and trees you couldn’t see it from the road.

“We thought it was a vacant lot,” joked Larsen.

The house, whose residents at one time appear to have been
hoarders, had been abandoned 15 years. Once the brush and trash
outside had been removed, they started on the inside. There were
still signs of the home’s former coal-powered heating source.
Layers of junk, from wrappers left behind by squatters on top to
layers of newspapers and romance novels underneath, had to be
cleared away.

“It was like an archeological dig,” Stallings said.

The home has those wonderful curved archways inside that we
Bremerton residents know well. The builders added a staircase
to the home — the original had a door that was maybe five feet tall
— and in doing so, they actually produced another archway to match
the original.

It’s a sign of the times that builders now have the financial
incentive to come into Bremerton and complete such projects. But
the builders say they specifically wanted to create quality housing
for young families. Stallings noted that builders looking to
complete a remodel on the cheap might’ve put down vinyl flooring in
the kitchen; they went with tile.

The duo has just about wrapped up a remodel on the home, and is
at work on a second one (pictured). They’ll build four more too,
hoping to have construction complete by October. They’re also
planning to place a playground on some neighboring property owned
by a church, to add an amenity for the children of families they
hope will live there.

Later this year, I will revisit F Street and share some photos
of its completed transformation.

The first of five new homes the
company will build on the street. They’ve left behind some Madrona,
Douglas Firs and Western Red Cedars.

Got five minutes?
This week’s Bremerton Beat Blast will get you caught up on a number
of stories, including this morning’s explosion in South Kitsap, a
newly expanded downtown cafe, and the time someone actually
water-skied behind a state ferry.

The city parks department has an “adopt
a shoreline” program aimed at giving volunteers their own
little slice of coast to maintain. But on Friday, parks officials
decided to change up the strategy a bit in what will likely put the
weeds into submission for awhile.

A small army of volunteers, many of them students of the
Washington Youth Academy, helped grub the parkland’s edge with
Puget Sound before spreading a new coat of beauty bark along the
entire coastline. Some new plants went in as well, paid for by
some of the salary of the
late Mike Sullivan, the former City Councilman who represented
the area.

The rugged work was not only to build stamina but learn a lesson
in community, Youth Academy Master Sgt. Ayesha Willis said.

“It’s showing them a different side of the world,” she said.
“It’s empowering.”

Last fall, a Bremerton couple made an unusual
discovery within the hedge along their driveway: numerous vintage
film reels in varying shapes and sizes.

Most of the reels contain clues to their owners:
“Nov. 71, Becky’s 6th birthday,” “Florida Vacation, 1959-60,” or
“Ostrander Picnic 1963.” But beyond that, it’s hard to know who
they belong to — unless the owner were to recognize them.

Bremerton Police Officer Jeff Schaefer responded to
the 600 block of Roosevelt Avenue last September to collect
them from the curious couple. He believes they may have been
discarded there by a thief who’d broken into a nearby home, but he
can’t say for certain.

He’s since tried to find the owners, but
has realized that without getting word out to the masses, the
reels may just end up collecting dust in the department’s evidence
room.

“I knew that when the reporting
party turned these reels over to me, they were someone’s family
treasures,” Schaefer said.

Schaefer says the discovery was one of the most
intriguing of his career.

“Ever since I took custody of them,
it’s been very important to me that I do all I can to get them back
to their owner,” he said.

“It would be my hope that someone
out there would recognize the names or the events printed on the
reel cans and be able to claim them,” he said. “I know that I would
be elated if I had the opportunity to catch a glimpse of my family
history like these films will for someone out
there.”

UPDATE: I am excited to announce
that representatives of the family have claimed the film reels! I
plan to post a more thorough update once I interview them.

Got a quarter? You can make it stretch for half
a minute or so at the Valentinetti Puppet Museum on
Fourth Street. There, a rare machine will wind to life —
complete with 15 dancing puppets — as you’ll see in this latest
edition of the Bremerton Beat Blast.

You can make a convincing argument that Quincy Jones is
the biggest name ever to come out of Bremerton. The
legendary musician and producer spent his teenage years here, and,
most notably, discovered music on the shores of Sinclair Inlet.

Though born in Chicago, Jones’ family moved to Bremerton in
1943. I always enjoy hearing him tell stories about the city, and
he did so most recently on CBS’ The Late Show with
Stephen Colbert.

In the interview, the host asked Jones — winner of 27
Grammy Awards — about the first instrument he ever
played. Jones mildly exasperated Colbert by avoiding
answering that question for some time, instead focusing on his
“gangster” youth. But Jones does indeed get to his Bremerton
days.

“What happened was … we wanted to be baby gangsters
and like, rule Bremerton,” Jones said. “It was Bremerton,
Washington.”

What I find delightful is he just says Bremerton,
like everyone knows what he’s talking about. He quickly elaborates
that it’s a city within Washington. But I think it speaks to his
roots here, that even beyond his time in Seattle, Chicago and
elsewhere, he would still mention our city without a state attached
to it, given his familiarity and memories of the place.

He goes on to tell the story of being in an armory
here where there was rumors of lemon meringue pie and ice cream
cones, which he and his “gangster” friends promptly ate upon
discovering them.

“That sounds like gangster work my friend,” Colbert
jokes.

They also broke into all the offices inside. He
mentions a Mrs. Arends by name, and it was inside her supervisors’
office that he found a piano.

“I didn’t know human beings played instruments,” he
told Colbert.

“I touched it,” he said, “And every cell in my body
said this is what you’re gonna do the rest of your life.”

Though he went to Coontz Junior High School near
downtown, he studied music with band teacher Ron Gillespie, future
Bremerton High School principal, at Dewey Junior High School (where
Mountain View Middle School sits today). He would ultimately
graduate from Garfield High School in 1950, according to Sun
archives.

What will become of the Warren Avenue Bridge?
On Thursday, city officials are inviting residents to come talk
about
the 1958-built span’s future. Get filled in on those
possibilities, along with these stories, in your weekly Bremerton
Beat Blast: